With The Greek Girl’s Story, Alan Singerman presents the first reliable, stand-alone translation and critical edition of Abbé Prévost’s 1740 literary masterpiece Histoire d’une Grecque moderne. The text of this new English translation is based on Singerman’s 1990 French edition, which Jonathan Walsh called “arguably the most valuable critical edition” of Prévost’s novel to date. This new edition also includes a complete critical apparatus comprising a substantial introduction, notes, appendixes, and bibliography, all significantly updated from the 1990 French edition, taking into account recent scholarship on this work and providing some additional reflection on the question of Orientalism. Prévost’s roman à clef is based on a true story involving the French ambassador to the Ottoman Porte from 1699 to 1711. It is narrated from the ambassador’s viewpoint and is a model of subjective, unreliable narration (long before Henry James). It is remarkably modern in its presentation of an enigmatic, ambiguous character, as the truth about the heroine can never be established with certainty. It is the story of the tormented relationship between the diplomat and a beautiful young Greek concubine, Théophé, whom he frees from a pasha’s harem. While her benefactor becomes increasingly infatuated with her and bent on becoming her lover, the Greek girl becomes obsessed with the idea of becoming a virtuous and respected woman. Viewing the ambassador as a father figure, she condemns his quasi-incestuous passion and firmly rejects his repeated seduction attempts. Unable to possess the young woman or tolerate the thought that she might grant to someone else what she has refused him, the narrator subjects her behavior to minute scrutiny in an effort to catch her in an indiscretion. His investigations are fruitless, however, and Théophé, the victim of incessant persecution, simply dies, leaving all the questions about her behavior unanswered.

Presents a study in 18th century English literature to give a clear and accurate description of a distinct component featuring Asian influences.

Die Arbeit analysiert Baz Luhrmanns Film „Moulin Rouge!“ (2001) vor dem Hintergrund postmoderner und orientalischer Stilmittel in Literatur und Film. Moulin Rouge! ist nach Strictly Ballroom (1992) und William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1996) das letzte Werk in Luhrmanns ‚Red Curtain Trilogy‘. Charakterisierend für diese Art des Filmschaffens ist, dass der Fokus auf der Art der Erzählung bzw. der Erzählform liegt, und nicht primär auf ihrem Inhalt. Moulin Rouge! verknüpft Elemente des amerikanischen Musicals der 40er und 50er Jahre mit europäischen Charthits der 1990er und Erzähltechniken aus Bollywood Filmen. Dabei spielt er mit postmodernen und poststrukturalistischen Phänomenen wie Intertextualität, mehreren Erzählebenen sowie der Selbstreflexivität der Figuren als auch der Geschichte. Der Film ist laut, bunt und hektisch. Kitsch oder Kunst oder beides - das bleibt eine Frage des Geschmacks.

A great deal of stimulating and valuable discussion (as well as some indignation and hot air) has been stimulated by Edward Said, whose provocative study of Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient appeared twenty years ago. This present book will, we believe, be recognized as a worthy addition to the many attempts that have since been made to sift the intrinsic and ingrained attitudes of West to East. The fifteen articles in Oriental Prospects: Western Literature and the Lure of the East cover literature from the Renaissance through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the modern period, some in pragmatic accounts of responses to and uses of experiences of the Orient and its cultural attitudes and artefacts, others contending more theoretically with issues that Edward Said has raised. Despite all the misunderstanding, prejudice and propaganda in the scholarly and literary depiction of the Orient still today as in the past, what emerges from this wide-range of articles is that no species of literary text or academic study can appear without risking the accusation of escapist exoticism or cultural and economic exploitation; and thus regrettably masking the essential and vital significance of the political and the real and imaginative trading between East and West.